Lecture by Irina Astashkevich

When: Tuesday, February 9 at 7:00 pm
Language: Russian
Admission: suggested donation $10; Members Free
Venue: Arlekin Players Theater, 368 Hillside Ave, Needham, MA
Parking: Needham Heights Train Station

Irina Astashkevich will give a lecture on the writer that is of much interest to the theatre as the next production will be a composition of his short stories.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (Yiddish: יצחק באַשעװיס זינגער; November 21, 1902 — July 24, 1991) was a Polish-born Jewish author in Yiddish, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978. The Polish form of his birth name was Icek Hersz Zynger. He used his mother’s first name in an initial literary pseudonym, Izaak Baszewis, which he later expanded to the form under which he is now known. He was a leading figure in the Yiddish literary movement, writing and publishing only in Yiddish. He also was awarded two U.S. National Book Awards, one in Children’s Literature for his memoir A Day Of Pleasure: Stories of a Boy Growing Up in Warsaw (1970) and one in Fiction for his collection, A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories.

About speaker

Irina Astashkevich holds a PhD from Brandeis University. Her dissertation is titled “Pogroms in Ukraine 1917-1920: An Alternate Universe.” Astashkevich received her MA in History, Jewish History and Archives from the Project Judaica — a joint project of the Russian State University of Humanities, Historical Archival Institute, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and the YIVO Institute of Jewish Research in New York. She has worked in various archives in Russia, Lithuania, and the US, as well as in Jewish philanthropic organizations, such as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Moscow.